Day 13 - Grand Mound to Penticton

He said: We got up, ate cereal in the hotel room,then I took the girls to the waterpark one last time. Mara and Gillian both really like the wave pool, and Mara is getting very good at trusting the lifejacket. Or at least she's getting good at telling me how much she's trusting the lifejacket, as she clenches her teeth, paddles furiously, and looks panicked. Not sure which. I gotta say, I have na almost irresistable urge to urinate in public pools. For the benefit of those who swam with me, let me stress the "almost' portion of that. It's very tempting.

Then we got in the car about 11AM and drove. Drove like the wind. We experienced a drive through cigarette window, a school park in some town near Chelan, and a Chelan WalMart. Then it was the border,which Calvin was freaked out about. I'm not sure why but it may have something to do with us telling him they'd never let him back across the border. It went uneventfully enough, except when the border guard decided to snap on a pair of gloves. After that it was smooth sailling until almost Penticton, where we encountered a traffic jam. Looked bad, the Brick truck ahead of us had already unloaded a couch from the back onto the road and were sitting in it. We went back to a park in Oliver while I grabbed some supper for everyone. Let me just say, Oriville is crawling with hippies. Dirty, smelly, hair braided, park lurking, hemp hackey sack snorting hippies. I'd rather spend a night in the van on the highway then stay there. We had to take a detour into the dark wilderness, but eventually we landed in Penticton. Where I'm told the weather will be bad tomorrow. Which is excellent, because we had 4 days of rain, and the gorgeous sunny 27 dgree weather we viewed from the van today as we drove 12 hours was really annoying. This room has bunk beds, and Gillian just said us moving outside her door was like a movie..so I entetained them a bit, to their great amusement. It's the little moments...they were awesome about the car ride agian. Ryan is going to be scarred for life, he fights going into that seat. He'll never drive again. Maybe if we stopped strapping him in with poo-filled diapers for 12 hours.

Oh, and just before the border a bird hit our windshield. Hard.

She said: I tried to make Brad feel better about the hippies. There just transient workers who go from town to town picking berries and living cheaply. They don't hurt anyone. And then 2 hippies started making out in the middle of the lawn at the park and a group of them left without cleaning up after themselves or their dog. I guess it's the arrogance that's a problem. We found out later that the accident was that a biker lost control and slid into the opposing lane - which was fine until traffic came around the corner of the sharp S turn and couldn't stop and ran him over. So glad that we could turn around where we were stopped. Mara had had "bad tummy" all day - it could have gotten very ugly if we weren't able to get her to a bathroom. What is it with BC infrastructure funding. Why don't they have streetlights and sidewalks. Our detour to Penticton wasn't in the middle of nowhere - it was in the middle of a very populated suburb. Reminded me of a place Phil used to live in Kelowna. When you drive there at night you feel like it's boony-ville and then in the day you realize that it's just like home with more hills and fewer sidewalk and streetlights. The clerk at the Days Inn in Penticton tried hard to give me the best rate. But after proving that I really didn't qualify he felt that our long drive and my broken toe qualified us for the seniors discount. I was reluctant to let Brad know this since he already teases me about or 5 yr age difference. I guess for $40 off per night I'll put up with the teasing.